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Cannabis use more detrimental to brain health than alcohol use, study claims

It’s Monday, so most of us aren’t feeling all that sharp to begin with, but a new study shows that there are certain — shall we say, weekend — behaviors that are likely to negatively affect your brain power in the long term.

A study published in the “Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease” used brain scans to pinpoint and assess the disorders and behaviors — from bipolar disorder to cannabis consumption — that prematurely age one’s brain. Topping the list of behaviors that give your brain figurative gray hairs is cannabis use, which ages the brain about three years, on average. Surprisingly, the study ranks cannabis use to be more rapidly aging —and by “brain aging” they mean a decline in memory retention and increased risk of Alzheimer’s or dementia, among other things — than disorders such as ADHD and alcoholism.